


Salvation June

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Australiana, Family, Family Fluff, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, flower symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Ren and June talk about flowers.





	

June washed glasses, while Ren wiped down tables. Pink twilight filtered through the windows. Enough light to clean up by, but the light was warm and dim.

Ren picked up a vase (just a pint mug filled with water and flowers, really) to clean under it. June nodded towards the flowers in it. “What do call those?”

Purple and magenta trumpets sat proud on top of grey-green spiked stems. The stems branched and looped, and the flowers shaded from light in the insides to dark on the outsides. They were remarkably pretty, but they were just weeds. They grew alongside Refuge’s roads, sprouted insides people's gardens, went everywhere generally. They covered the town in a purple carpet. But even with their commonness, they were a beautiful bloom, and one of the few ones that could be found in the bubble.

“They’re Salvation Jane,” Ren said. She had to stop herself adding a ‘hun’ to the end of it. (Gods, she was starting to turn into her own mother.

“That’s not most people call them. Most call them Patterson’s Curse.”

They’d had this conversation before. June had grown out of the constant ‘Why?’ stage, but she still wanted to have the same explanations over and over. Ren didn’t mind; she liked explaining things to June. She was a smart kid who absorbed everything like a sponge, even if she liked drawing up the same water over and over. “It’s a regional thing, I think. The town I was in before I came here called ‘em Salvation Jane.”

“It just seems an odd name for that flower. Like, it’s a pretty bad flower. When it gets and dry, it strangles out the grass--” June mimed grass strangling “--And ‘cause it’s all that’s there, the cows and horses eat it. But it’s real poisonous, so they get sick and die. I can’t see how it’s a salvation, it’s a curse.”

“My old town was a sheep town. I think that might the difference.” It felt odd referring to it as ‘her’ town. She’d only been there a season, when she was still dazzled by the bright sun of the surface. “I wouldn’t call the place a cow town exactly, but it’s more cow than sheep.”

Ren placed the vase back down and went to wipe down another table.June seemed to be talking more subtext that text right now, but Ren couldn’t put a finger on what she was alluding to. (A lot June being ‘wise beyond her years’ was more ‘speaking in subtext beyond her years,’ Ren found.) “By the time Salvation Jane starts growing, most of the grass is long dead. Without the grass for fodder, sheep start starving. Start dying. But this little flower grows in even the driest summers. It’s not good for sheep, eating it for a season will cut their life by a year, but if you had a choice between your sheep starving now or living a year less, what would you choose. I saw a farmer weep when he saw the first flower, because it meant his stock was saved.”

“But it still kills the sheep. Maybe not now, but it’s still poisonous.”

“Sometimes a poison is what you need to survive, if it’s the only thing that’ll grow.”

And that’s when the subtext hit Ren. What defines Refuge? What defines June? The burned-in inscription over the gate, ‘By Their Sacrifice, Our Home is Made Safe.’ That one horrible, looping hour. A little girl with a cup more powerful than anyone could handle, trying to save the town and dooming it to repeat it’s destruction. A poison, of sorts, poisoning the town’s time and fate. But it’s salvation as well. Without the cup, without June, Refuge would be a hole in the ground.

Ren squatted down in front of June. Only a little while ago, that’d put them both at eye height, but now June was a full two inches taller when Ren did that. “You’re much better at dancing around the subject than I, so I’m going to be super blunt. Probably too much like a mum, too.”

June screwed her face up, uncomfortable.

“Now, I may not be reading this convo right, in which case this’ll sound real silly. You did what was needed to save this town.”

June winced, and Ren knew she had read it right.

“And the options you had to do that sucked. Really sucked. If you had others, you would have picked them, right? But sometimes you don’t get to pick grass. Sometimes, it’s a drought, and all you got is Salvation Jane. You’ve still got to keep the flock fed, though. ...Metaphorically.”

June’s eyes watered, the way they did when she worked out what she was feeling and it all came out. The good sort of crying, probably, but Ren’s mother hen instincts hated to see her cry. This required a Mum Move. A risky one, but Ren was fairly sure it’d work.

She tucked a stray strand of her behind June’s hair. “Salvation June.” She kept her tone light, hoping June would read it as an incredibly dorky nickname, and head the tears off at the pass.

It worked. June stuck her tongue out. “Ren’s Curse.”

“Well I never, young lady,” Ren said, mock offended.

June started laughing, and Ren ignored the little hitches of breath.

“Come on, we’ve still got a little cleaning to do.”


End file.
